After saying that they have performed “flawlessly” FEMA ran out of water on Staten Island.

After saying that they have performed “flawlessly” FEMA ran out of water on Staten Island.

FEMA’s “lean forward” strategy fell back when they ran out of bottled water and other supplies for emergency distribution.

“We thought a few cases would be enough for all of Staten Island,” said a source close to FEMA. “We didn’t know there were so many people on Staten Island. Somebody on the Water Team didn’t crunch the numbers properly.”

FEMA appears to have been completely unprepared to distribute bottled water to Hurricane Sandy victims when the storm hit. In contrast to its stated policy, FEMA failed to have any meaningful supplies of bottled water — or any other supplies, for that matter — stored in nearby facilities as it had proclaimed it would on its website. This was the case despite several days advance warning of the impending storm.

FEMA only began to solicit bids for vendors to provide bottled water for distribution to Hurricane Sandy victims on Friday, sending out a solicitation request for 2.3 million gallons of bottled water at the FedBizOpps.govwebsite.

John Trumbo of Hackensack, New Jersey put in a bid, saying “I got 3 million ready to go, dudes. Come and get it.” But FEMA thought Trumbo was gauging them. “Look, we’re not going to overpay for water, no matter what,” said a FEMA source.

Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg has decided to send 2 million cans of Diet Coke to Staten Island. “I think this will help those residents a great deal. As long as they don’t pour them into a Big Gulp cup.”

The Mayor still has not been to Staten Island. “He doesn’t know how to get there,” said a Bloomberg aid.